UFW Seeks Improved Health Care

Backed by powerful Democratic lawmakers and the California Medical Assn., the United Farm Workers union will launch a major legislative initiative Tuesday that would revoke about $80 million in agricultural tax breaks to pay for improved medical care for farm laborers in the state.

At a news conference in Sacramento, union officials and health experts are expected to unveil legislation that would give growers tax credits for providing medical insurance to their workers. To pay for the credits, Assembly Bill 923 would revoke sales tax exemptions on farm machinery, diesel fuel and other items. The exemptions were given to growers to win Republican votes for the state budget in 2001.

The bill, co-written by Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) and Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), would divide the money saved by ending the tax breaks among growers who provide health insurance to their workers. Growers would be able to claim tax credits if they paid at least 75% of the premiums on qualified health plans.

The proposal is expected to face strong opposition from agricultural interests, especially small- and mid-size farmers, who say they can’t afford to provide insurance.

Revoking the tax breaks would drive up costs for the farmers least able to afford it, said Mike Webb, lobbyist for the Western Growers Assn., whose 3,500 members produce 90% of California’s vegetables and 60% to 70% of the state’s output of fruits and nuts.

“Here’s another thing that Sacramento is doing that’s going to make it more difficult for farmers,” Webb said. “Many of those people who cannot provide health insurance are the small- and medium-size growers who are just struggling to stay afloat.”

Union officials and other supporters of the bill, however, say the measure would give growers a financial incentive to provide medical coverage to farm laborers.

“It’s a reward to those employers that have decided to do the right thing,” said UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. “It’s also an effort to even the playing field for farm workers, to ensure that more working families in rural communities get access to health care.”

Union officials and legislative leaders conceived the measure as a way to address the lack of health care for farm workers without seeking new money from the cash-starved state treasury or a tax increase, which would require two-thirds approval by lawmakers. AB 923 would require only a majority vote, making it unlikely that pro-business Republicans could block its passage, supporters said.

Health experts and UFW leaders say California urgently needs to address the lack of medical insurance among the estimated 400,000 to 700,000 people employed by the state’s $28-billion-a-year agricultural industry. Overall, about 6 million Californians don’t have medical insurance and are ultimately forced to seek emergency care, straining the state health system to the breaking point, experts said.

Few Have Insurance

Suffering in Silence, a 2000 report by the California Institute for Rural Studies, found that nearly 70% of the 1,174 California farm workers surveyed lacked any form of health insurance and that only 7% were covered by government-funded medical programs for the poor. The survey, which included a comprehensive physical examination, found farm workers to be suffering from poor health and nutrition.

“It’s devastating to families,” Rodriguez said. “Too many times it ends up in permanent damage to children.”

The California Medical Assn., which represents the state’s 34,000 doctors, sees the legislation as an opportunity to address the problem by giving growers a financial incentive “to do the right thing and cover their employees,” said Dustin Corcoran, a lobbyist for the group.

“The lack of access to care is incredible in this state, particularly for migrant farm workers,” he said. “This bill is an out-of-the-box way of getting at that problem. To the extent that we could provide coverage and increase access to medical care, that would be a tremendous victory. We’re going to lobby this intensely at the Capitol.”

Growers Dispute Figures

Growers say the UFW is overstating the number of uninsured farm workers.

A majority of Western Growers members provide medical coverage for their employees. But spiraling costs of workers’ compensation insurance and health insurance are forcing some to drop medical coverage for their employees, Webb said.

Most growers “want to do what’s right, but they have to make sure their farms survive,” he said. “That’s the hard economics of being a farmer in today’s world in California.”

Another advocate of the UFW legislation is Carole Migden, chairwoman of the state Board of Equalization, which oversees collection of about one-third of California’s revenue, including property taxes and sales and use taxes.

“Conceptually, we think it makes sense,” said Betty Yee, Migden’s deputy. “It’s a pretty creative way of not exacerbating the current fiscal crisis” and redirecting money “toward something that we think is more of a public policy need, which is health insurance for agricultural workers.”

The proposal follows a historic UFW victory last year in the Legislature -- passage of a bill that granted unionized farm workers the right to a form of binding arbitration in contract disputes with growers. Gov. Gray Davis initially opposed the legislation, but eventually signed a less sweeping version of the bill.

Agricultural groups are contesting the constitutionality of the new law in a state court lawsuit filed in Sacramento in February.

Discussions led by Rodriguez and UFW political strategist Richie Ross on how to follow last year’s victory resulted in AB 923.

Rodriquez said he hoped that, as with the arbitration bill, “some of the Republicans are going to see this, not as a partisan issue, but as a human issue, and that this is the right thing to do.”

As conceived by the bill’s sponsors and authors, growers would have to apply for the tax credits. The money available for the credits would be limited to the amount that the agricultural sales tax exemptions would have cost the state, a figure that would be calculated each year by the Board of Equalization.

Growers would file claims for the tax credits with the state Employment Development Department, providing documentation that they had assumed the cost of at least 75% of the medical insurance premiums of their workers. The department then would verify the claims and allocate credits, using employment records on file with the department. The program would take effect in the 2004 tax year.

“The attractive part of the proposal is that it doesn’t involve any new dollars,” Yee said. “I think that’s very important, given the current fiscal environment.”